On Sunday 31 August 2003 10:24, Tzafrir Cohen wrote:
> e.g.: X has some infrastructure for 3d-graphgics. But not yet any
> extention to make the client, window-manager and server agree on such
> accelerated zooming. Not to mention that many servers lack hardware
> acceleration ATM.
The problems Oded raised are not for the most part in X11 itself,
but rather in a specific implementation issue, related to XFree86.
There are 3 problems with XFree86 -- they are:
1. Drivers
2. Drivers
3. Drivers
And they all result from one single factor:
Specs for the graphics card are lost in a pile of NDA's
If you think I'm wrong, ask yourself: What was the graphics performance
of the X86 machine produced by SGI at 1997? [regretfully not on the market
anymore]
I can testify first hand -- astonishing -- remember I'm talking about
a PC from 1997 (with Nvidia graphics chipset BTW). So why it had such
excelent graphics performance?
1. The people who designed and wrote the drivers for this box
new a thing or two about X11, OpenGL (They wrote the specs for OpenGL).
and didn't try to port a Windows driver design (like current
Nvidia drivers) to X11.
2. The people who did it had a full spec of the chipset (under NDA)
unlike the poor chaps at XFree86 that have to reverese engineer
Win* drivers and beg for some info from hardware vendors.
Lucky for us, Linux on the desktop is starting to rise, which would produce
many more people like Oded to complain about these issues. With enough
market pressure -- there will be solutions (specs and/or better drivers).
Be happy...
--
Oron Peled Voice/Fax: +972-4-8228492
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.actcom.co.il/~oron
Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build
bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to produce
bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning.
-- Rick Cook, Mission Manager, NASA Mars Pathfinder Project
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